As to be expected, the first time Kiara ever caught sight of my rage a mere month into her stay, the first time she ever saw the truth of the man she was slowly befriending, was on a rather unremarkable day, caused by something that should have been easily ignored.
We were sitting in the parlor, Kiara reading a book she had found in my limited library as the falling snow outside closed off the world for the season. I was supposed to be reading, too, but I was spending more time focusing on her than my book. Since that day in the music room, we spoke about music often, but I had yet to hear her play. Whether the piece was too daunting, or something else was keeping her fingers at bay, I had yet to know. Thus, it wasn’t the first time we’d passed a few hours in this manner, and I’d even say the atmosphere was somewhat comfortable between us.
The afternoon grew late as we waited for the staff to announce that tea was ready. As I was less absorbed in my reading than Kiara, I was the one to notice the delay.
“Taking too long to ready the tea,” I commented.
Kiara glanced up, her mind still on the story. “Hm?” she asked.
“The tea is taking a long time,” I repeated.
Kiara gave me one of her beautiful smiles, the one that always drew the beast’s admiring gaze. “I hadn’t noticed,” she said, half-raising her book in explanation. “And as I’ve two chapters left, I really don’t mind.”
Knowing I wouldn’t have her attentions yet, and suddenly annoyed at the delayed tea, I unwisely decided to look into the matter.
“I’ll inquire after it,” I announced, excusing myself from the room.
Kiara simply nodded in return, her focus already drawn back to the story she was intent on finishing.
I was almost to the kitchen when I bumped into a servant.
“Your Highness,” he bowed quickly, surely hoping to skitter away before our interaction could be prolonged.
“Why is the tea late?” I asked pointedly, a razor sharp edge to my voice.
“Miss Kiara requested oranges, Your Highness,” the servant quickly replied, keeping his head submissively down between his shoulders, a clear desire to sink into the floor where he thought it was safer.
“And?” I pressed.
“And we haven’t any, Your Highness,” he forced himself to admit. “We’ve sent someone to get.”
Suddenly, in that innocuous hallway, the beast Kiara had enchanted into dormancy began to growl.
“When did Miss Kiara request the oranges?” I asked, my voice flat, too flat to convey any emotion, to convey anything that could be mistaken for my fast disappearing humanity.
“Th-th-this morning,” the servant pushed out.
“This morning,” I repeated, sharpening a claw on every letter of those two words.
“Yes-s-s-s-s, Y-y-yo-your Hi-highnes-s-s-s,” the servant stuttered, fruitlessly clenching his teeth to prevent revealing the shivering extent of his fear.
But it was too late, the beast had smelled his panic and instantly sprang to life.
“Yet you only saw fit to send someone now,” I stated, dangerously polite.
Then the darkness descended, and my hands shoved the servant against the wall, hard enough that he went limp upon impact. But that wasn’t enough for the infectious, rotting evil within me. My hands grasped for anything that would move, any shelf, any broom, any bucket, anything I could break then grind to dust underfoot. I roared and I roared, only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps, of the large hands that dragged at me and tried to pin me down.
I bucked and twisted, more than once throwing down Jaxel, more than once slamming against Kellan, as they fought against the curse that had once more usurped me.
We were all panting heavily by the time the beast lost interest and subsided enough for them to hold me down without fear of further injury, sweat rolling down our backs, our foreheads, into our eyes. Jaxel was pressing my head against the floor, cheek to polished wood, holding my arms in a death grip that would soon cut off my circulation. Kellan sat on my feet, employing the full weight of his overlarge, half-witted frame to prevent me from even twitching.
We’d been so engrossed in subduing the beast that neither of us noticed the approach of two tiny, dainty feet. We only knew she was there when the music of her voice whispered in horror, “Azhar?”
The sound was so slight and yet it startled us all, giving me the leeway I needed to escape my two guards. I didn’t think twice, I didn’t look back. I bolted, bursting through a side door and making straight for the woods, not stopping until I was deep enough in that I could no longer see the turrets over the treetops.
I leaned against a thick trunk and howled like a wolf, overcome with shame, unable to escape the feeling that had come over me when her pure voice spoke my name. I envisioned Kiara’s inquiring eyes, eyes that had to have seen too much of the truth I’d tried so hard to hide. Eyes that surely saw just how much I wasn’t. I knew that the question in her voice wasn’t about what had occurred, but about what had occurred to me. I imagined the pity in her gaze, her willingness to believe that this behavior wasn’t really me, that there was no monster lurking in the shadows of the castle I called home, and that vain trust tore at me even more.
Then, like a pendulum on its return swing, the more I thought about my shame, the angrier I became, enough so my racing heart slowed and settled back into its icy prison. Soon, I was methodically battering at the trees around me, ripping at their limbs and scratching away their bark in a calculated attempt to destroy them, to strip them of their outer veneer just as I was whenever the beast overtook me. When I was finally done, the trees were ravaged and stained with blood. I stared at my hands, at the raw flesh, the gashes, but as usual, I couldn’t feel a thing.
I didn’t return to the castle that night. I couldn’t face Kiara, couldn’t see the truth on her face that her father had been right about the beast banished to live out his unworthy life in this forgotten place. Only now can I also admit that I also didn’t want to face any of the servants, didn’t want to see the disappointment on their faces when they finally understood that the last few weeks of quiet had only been a lull before a new and blinding blizzard broke loose. Surely, they had hoped. Surely, that hope was as frayed as my useless wits.
I don’t remember everything, but I vaguely remember running right to the very edge of a cliff and looking down on the river running beneath it. A distant voice wondered what would be if I hurled myself over the side, if the fall would instantly kill me or if I would survive only to refuse to fight the current as it pulled me under. The beast laughed loudly at that small voice, and I knew I would never be able to embrace death as a way to free myself from it. That was its ultimate hold over me. If I tried to drown myself, the beast would simply take over, fight for its survival, destroy what was left of me, and fulfill the faery’s curse.
I stayed away for three days, three days during which no food or drink passed my lips and my hands burned, burned, burned from the coldness and the fury that had torn through them. I was feverish by the time Jaxel and Kellan found me, muttering to myself about the savage, snarling animal only I could hear. I used the last of my energy to twist out of their grasp twice before they were finally able to subdue me. I tried in vain to turn away from the shadows reaching for me, from the snicker I heard in the winds, from the evil already within me. Wherever I stepped, the ground pulsed with the darkness grabbing at my feet, a blackened rhythm for an even blacker soul.
To add to the indignity, Jaxel and Kellan had to heave me up and throw me sideways, stomach down over my horse for the ride back to the castle. True, I couldn’t hold myself up at that point anyway, true I didn’t have my senses about me anymore, but I still remember that. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to hope that Kiara wouldn’t see me in my sorry state, though the fragile part of my soul that still knew goodness for what it was desperately prayed she hadn’t fled the castle in my absence. Just one look, one glance from that angelic being, and surely my life wo
uld be tolerable once more.
But that would have been too easy.
“Curse the faery and curse her cage!” I raved over and over. “Curse the faery and curse a cursed me!”
Gripped by madness, I’d said nothing else for days, so my throat was raw, my voice hoarse, and the words cracked on their way out.
I don’t know if she was there when I was finally dragged back into the castle and locked away in my room, but I do know that she was the first person I saw when I finally came to myself a few days later, her shining face strong enough to force my eyes shut as if the glare of the sun had been directed right into them. Of course, as soon as I caught sight of her sitting on the floor beside my mattresses, as soon as I was aware of the pressure of her hand over my heavily bandaged one, I turned away from her, even in my relief that she was still there. Still ashamed, I wasn’t yet ready to see her again. I wasn’t sure that I ever would be.
I only looked long enough to see that the shredded remains of my family’s portrait had been tactfully moved to another room. Heaven bless Jaxel for always keeping his wits about him and protecting me even when I least deserved it.
“Leave me,” I commanded in a voice made gruff from three days of raging at specters and darkness.
“No.”
Her answer took me entirely by surprise, enough so that I turned to peek at her through the slits of my half-closed eyes. That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. That wasn’t what it wanted to hear.
“No?” I pressed.
“No,” she repeated, the determination clearly written across her beautiful face.
“The servant—”
“—Euchnid is fine,” she interrupted me.
The beast gave a low chuckle, more warning than laugh, a distant rumble of thunder to herald an impending storm. “Have you not realized that your sisters were right? A monster lives in this castle, and you foolishly sit alone with him. No one knows you’re here, your father couldn’t even see you to the door, and the servants,” I paused, “well, the servants can’t protect you. Not from me. No one can.”
Kiara tightened her lips, withholding her immediate response. I seethed. Why wasn’t she afraid? Didn’t she know she had to be? Didn’t she know that bravery wouldn’t save her from what the beast could use me to do to her?
For the beast saw she still hadn’t wavered and grinned, eager for the challenge of breaking her determination, wanting nothing more than to force her fear into the open. I didn’t doubt it would succeed. Kiara, luminescent as she was, was no match for it, so all that remained between them was my frayed humanity, and I had little faith in that.
“You think to help me?” I sneered at her expression. “Weak and sheltered, your father’s darling daughter, you know nothing of the evils of this world. Nothing.”
Kiara’s eyes flashed, first with quickly stifled pain, then stronger with muted anger. Good. Let her get riled up. Let her feel disgust and turn away from me, scorn me, reject me, just like everyone else. Let her see how far that would get her. Let her try and see what the beast would do.
“You think that because I’m not you, I don’t know darkness?” she asked sharply. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever suffered, who can understand how very deep pain can run?”
Her response brought me up short. What was her past hiding? Even if something dark lurked there, it couldn’t compare to what I was going through. It wasn’t possible that she’d seen true darkness, yet remained untouched by it.
“You—” I angrily began.
“I know, Azahr. I know!” she exclaimed. “I’ve looked evil in the eye as it greedily took from me. I’ve shivered from its rotted breath upon my soul, and I was not the same after.”
Curiosity, more than anything else, subverted my rising anger. Her choice to stay in the room puzzled me, that she was unafraid of the beast she’d seen me unleash confounded me. It was to be my first lesson in discovering a new kind of strength, one that could not be tested on a field, or measured by instructors, or proven by breaking or moving or throwing things. Rather, it was one proven through its inability to break or bend or be moved anywhere at all. Kiara would show herself to be far stronger than I in that regard.
Kiara’s unwavering gaze, so full of warmth, so full of kindness, never left me, and I wondered what could have happened in her life to dissipate her fear. Outside of that first day, I don’t think she ever was afraid, and even then it was more apprehension than true fear. Granted, my more human side never wanted Kiara to be frightened of me, but she would come to be afraid for me, more times than she would ever admit.
“What happened to you?” I asked dumbly.
“You need to rest,” she insisted.
She raised a glass of something warm to my lips and only for her did I take a few sips before shaking it away. I didn’t press, but only because there was a sense of testing the ice for cracks, toeing here, toeing there, leaping back from churning waters. Besides, calling her the mistress of my castle didn’t change the fact that she was still my prisoner and so not going anywhere anytime soon. I would get the story from her.
We were still in the first stages of carefully circling each other. Our relationship was turning cordial, comfortable even. Unwittingly, by allowing her to see the one part of me I had desperately wanted to keep hidden, I had released the very thing that would draw her ever closer, until she couldn’t leave, even if she wanted to.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked roughly.
“Because I am certain Heaven has a reason for sending me here,” she said firmly.
Then she simply held my hand, and I soaked up her warmth through the thick bandages that bound mine.
“This happen often?” Kiara asked two days later, as she changed the wrapping on my hands.
Since I’d woken up, I’d found her at my side at different times throughout the day. She was always there to help me eat, though I’d since gained strength enough to sit up and feed myself, and she was always there at night, often with a book to read aloud or sheet of music to sing softly, albeit still without accompaniment.
I shifted on my mattresses. I didn’t know how much the servants had told her, surely someone had to have come up with some explanation for what she’d seen in the hall just a few days ago. I thought quickly; if Jaxel and Kellan had immediately set out to find me, then they certainly didn’t have time for any explanation. I settled on Ms. Potsdam and, knowing how much she’d taken a liking to my imprisoned guest, I couldn’t be sure of what she’d told her.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Recently less often, but often enough.”
Kiara nodded, and fell into silent thought, her eyes straying to her hands, which had since finished their task but hadn’t yet let go of mine. As if suddenly aware, she pulled them back, and mine became cold again in the absence of her touch. She looked at me and took a deep breath.
“When my father first came home and spoke about a beast living in a castle, my sisters and I didn’t believe him,” she unexpectedly began. “Our circumstances are not what they once were, not since certain…changes forced us to move and then Father changed, too. There was a time when he’d been rather successful, but the wheel of fortune had turned. Knowing how hard things were, seeing what was happening to Father, my sisters moved with their families to be nearer to us. We often feared Father was losing much of his sanity with worry over what would be. Then he received word of a ship long thought lost that had been sighted returning to shore and hope bloomed within him once more. It was wonderful seeing him so alive again.”
She stopped, smiling to herself at the memory.
“When he set off to welcome his ship at the harbor, joy had once more returned to our home and we were certain all would be well again. He even bothered to ask each of us what present we wished for him to bring back, just as when we were children. My sisters eagerly requested silks and jewels and other expensive things we used to own, but I didn’t have need for any of it. Father’s happiness was the greatest g
ift, after all.” She paused, before continuing, “A rose. A single rose in any color was all I wanted. None bloomed at our new home and I missed them.”
She stopped a moment and to my surprise offered me a warm smile. She even took my hand back up again, holding it tightly as she spoke, as if I was the one to give her strength.
“Well, Father set off, but when he greeted his ship, he found himself greeted by creditors, enough of them to take from him any profit he made in the selling of his wares. So though his debts were settled, he was unable to bring back anything for his daughters as promised. Then came the storm on his return home,” and again Kiara smiled at me, “and you know what happened next.”
I nodded, though I now had mixed emotions about that encounter. Then, I had considered scaring the merchant and demanding his return a way to act out over not being called to war, a way to breed fear in another and harvest it to feed the beast. Everything had changed when that brought Kiara into my life, something for which I was eternally grateful, yet also ashamed of because of the way I had treated someone so near and dear to her.
The thoughts tumbling about my head were instantly dispelled with Kiara’s next words.
“It meant so much to me that you allowed Father to bring back the rose,” she said sincerely, her voice filled with an appreciation I’d never had directed toward me in all my years. “My sisters, too, were happy for a while with their treats, but then Father told us about the beast who had given him the means to buy them and admitted he had to return to him.”
Kiara shrugged in answer to an unasked question. “With all that had already happened, I couldn’t let him go back,” she explained, “He’s too old, and I am the youngest, after all. I thought no one would miss me much. My sisters even delighted in the idea of me becoming a prisoner to a beast. They were sure I’d be eaten alive.”
Human Again Page 9